1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods for obtaining a location of equipment connected to a network in a building or the like, methods for displaying a list of the equipment, and methods for managing the equipment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Although the methods for obtaining a location of equipment outside a building include the one using GPS, the one using a magnetic sensor, and the like, these methods do not indicate an accurate location in a building. The conventional techniques concerning the methods for obtaining a location in a building include Integrated Wireless LAN Access System (1): Study on Location System, by Ogino, Tsunehara, et al., B-5-203, Proceedings of Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers General Conference, Vol. 2003_Communication NO. 1, pp. 662 (2003. 03), Integrated Wireless LAN Access System (2): Study on Position Location Accuracy, by Tsunehara, Ogino, et al., B-5-204, Proceedings of Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers General Conference, Vol. 2003_Communication NO. 1, pp. 663 (2003. 03), and JP-A-2005-110314, as the method for obtaining a location using a wireless LAN equipment. These methods measure the location of a wireless LAN equipment using a plurality of wireless LAN access points.
Moreover, the conventional techniques concerning determining and retrieving an installation place of a LAN component unit include JP-A-2005-110314 as a method for determining an installation place of a LAN component unit by allowing a correspondence between MAC addresses and port numbers of LAN component units to be accessed as extended MIB information of the LAN component units.
Moreover, the conventional techniques concerning an asset management of equipment connected to a LAN include JP-A-2005-292906 as a method for obtaining and managing not only a logical location but also a physical location on a network by storing the physical location of the equipment into a database for each logical identifier in advance, with the IP address of the equipment being as the logical identifier.